Down memory lane (Journey to Cherrapunji & Dawki): - Last part

After watching Nahakalikai waterfalls that disappeared again by passing clouds, we proceeded back. Meanwhile, I had a small talk with the tour operator ‘RONG’ at Shillong and renegotiated our tour further to Dawki. As we managed to save a lot of time by skirting some view points, I thought to drive another 90 kilometres to Dawki.  As such Cherrapunji and Dawki tour are two different tours and take at least two days that I clubbed up to a single day. Guys with spare time make this tour in a couple of days staying in between Cherrapunji and Dawki to see and enjoy the beauty of Meghalaya

as much as possible. (As if we have no time to spare; don’t we have enough time as retired couple?)

I was wondering that if I would have been in a time wrap, then this place is simply unknown to me. Except a few kilometres road to Nahakalikai was not same what it was earlier. A single potholed street is converted now to a smooth two lane highway. Except the Khasi boys and girls, all are different, though boys and girls sport western attire now. Traditional khasi attire is for ‘photo shooting’ only. Poverty level is not improved as expected. Most interestingly, Cherrapunji lost its place of world’s most wet place. Rain does not come here too often. Numerous waterfalls have dried out, standing like Dinosaur fossil. But, tourists flock in those lovely places to enjoy whatever left of this once beautiful place the ‘abode of clouds’, the Meghalaya!!

At lunch time we returned to the same Duwan Sing Syiem Bridge. This bridge is unofficially entry point of Sohar/Cherrapunji to view the picture post card type of panorama that Meghalaya Tourism advertises. So, all the tourist loaded cars are seen standing here for enjoying those breath taking views. A good lunch house is there. We had our lunch along with the driver ‘Bon’. And we proceeded towards Dawki. That meant going back towards to Shillong and turn right at Laitlyngkot for another 59 Kilometre drive towards Bangladesh Border. Slowly, in every villages Churches and their spires are visible. I started reading the names of churches but was not surprised to see which faith of Christianity did not make road inside this hilly area. There is a ‘Presbyterian’ Church standing with ‘Church of India’ (Protestants). Other churches like ‘Methodist’, ‘Sixth day Adventists’ are also standing tall. But, I have not seen any Mandir or Masjid on the way wherever we drove. Probably, not built on main roads!

Out of curiosity I searched Wikipedia and had my answer: - Religion in Meghalaya is closely related to ethnicity. Close to 90% of the Garo and nearly 80% of the Khasi are Christian, while more than 97% of the Hajong, 98.53% of the Koch are Hindu.

At the 2001 census, out of the 689,639 Garo living in Meghalaya, only 49,917 followed their original religion (Songsarek) down from 90,456 in 1991. 9,129 of the Garo were Hindu (up from 2,707 in 1991) and 999 were Buddhist (up from 109 in 1991). There were also 8,980 Muslims.

Unlike the Garo, a significant number of the Khasi still follow their original religion (Niam Shnong / Niamtre). Out of the 1,123,490 Khasi, 202,978 followed the indigenous religion (slightly up from 189,226 in 1991). 17,641 of the Khasi were Hindu (8,077 in 1991) and 2,977 were Muslim.

A number of minor tribes live in Meghalaya, including Hajong (31,381 – 97.23% Hindu), Koch (21,381 – 98.53% Hindu), Synteng (18,342 – 80% Christian), Rabha tribe (28,153 – 94.60% Hindu), Mikir (11,399 – 52% Christian and 30% Hindu), and Kuki (10,085 – 73% Christian and 26% Hindu). But to us all are khasis, though Jaintia & Garo hill people are distinctly different in all the senses.

The road to Dawki passes through the spectacular hilly road and is much sharper than previously encountered. After each turning we never knew where would be the next turning left or right! The Bolero was doing good progress with an average of 40 kilometres per hour speed miles ate that way. Villages after villages passed bye with spectacular sceneries that were distinctly different at every turn. Temperature was getting gradually warm slowly as we were going down the hill.

We are approaching some small town on the way; particularly the small town of Pongtung was beautiful. Set up at the end of a hillock, the place was full of activities of town folks. As there was a time constraint on us, so we did not stop and enjoy a cup of tea with local guys there. The road was getting much more treacherous with bends and bends. Someone told me that most treacherous of all the passes in European circuits is Targa Florio’ circuit of Palermo, Italia. But, I think this part of the highway can challenge it. In this part of Highway there is no guard rail, no illuminated flash points, and no white painted marker. Only you have white coloured mark at the centre that also got faded at many places.

 Further down the hill, we came to a small town, Wahkdait, teemed with full contingent of visitors and all modes of tourist cars. The road then was near horizontal though winding. At every turn ‘Bon’ was showing the Bangladesh borderline. Then we came to a old derelict cable Bridge manned by Semi Automatic lanced Border Security Force Jawans. The bridge was constructed over a spectacular clean water river named Dawki River and there is a confluence where another river ‘Goyain’ from Bangladesh meets that flows further to Sylhet District of Bangladesh.

From this part of India I could hear Bengali songs on loudspeaker and Azan from Mosque calling faithful Muslims for evening Namaz. Some activities are seen right on the river bed on sand with some temporary structures erected there. Also, saw some people are crossing knee deep water to reach there. The water at Dawki River is so clean that fishes are visible from the top. Even boats seem to be floating on air.

Road beyond this was in a bad shape full of potholes and single lane only. Slowly we reached Tamboli border check post of India Bangladesh border. Several tourists from Bangladesh was also seen loitering there. Thanks to BSF and Bangladesh Rifles we are allowed to go to ‘No Man’s land. We were introduced to Bangladesh tourists and I switched over to my Dhaka dialect and accent. Momentary meeting was good enough to remain in the mind for a pretty long time.

We did take some snaps with Bangladeshi tourist who too ventured No Man’s Land. And this will remain as a sweet memory.

The return journey to Shillong too was quite exciting. Sun was vanishing behind the mountain at faster speed than anticipated and at around 5 PM, the road became dark. With the vehicle continuously going uphill we were suddenly encircled with deep non penetrating white cumulous cloud. Visibility became roughly 10 feet. Nothing was seen where the vehicle was going. Only white mark painted at centre of the road was visible. But that did not stop the driver to slow down. As usual he was driving like hell without listening my repeated cautions. This situation was there for at least 20 to 25 Kilometers. There after cloud did not bother us.

We were coming to journey end. Next day we went back to Guwahati for our onward flight back to Kolkata. We very much liked the place and hope we will once again come back to see this place. We are already planning to visit Arunachal and visit ‘Lake of no return’. Lake of no return is in Burma and is 5 Kilometers from Indian Border. No Passport or visa is necessary as there is no one to ask for. So, this is the end of this story.

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